Preach The Word

For the reading of God's word. The call to worship today is from Deuteronomy 6, verses four through nine. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

And these words, which I command you today, shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates.

You may be seated.

Let's pray.

Bow your heads.

Heavenly Father, you are holy and glorious. You are all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present. In you, we live and move and have our being. Apart from you, there is nothing. There is only you and that which you create.

Father, nothing happens in your creation except that which you have decreed. No sparrow falls from the sky, no hair falls from head, apart from your will. You know all that comes to pass, because you choose all that comes to pass.

Father, we ask that we would have eyes to see it, that we would have eyes to understand and believe your word, that you would give to us a heart that desires to glorify you, and that we would apply your word.

Father, we pray that you would cause us, as we go about our lives and look upon the world, that we would see your glory because of the truth that is in us, that we would interpret all things according to what your word says.

Father, we pray that you would cause the church to be matured in the world, this church in particular to be matured. We pray that you would mature our friends in the faith, our brothers in the faith, that you would cause other local churches throughout the world to be grown, and that you would cause an increase of unity in the church.

We pray that you would give right doctrine and unity and love to your church, that the witness of the church would be powerful in the earth. Father, we pray that you would cause our homes to be well and rightly ordered, that you would cause men to lead in a self-sacrificing way, that you would cause wives to submit, that you would cause children to honor parents, and for all of them to work together in love, to share in the good things that you give to them, to work together and to worship together.

Father, we pray that you would put our homes into beautiful order and help us to have hospitality from house to house. Father, we ask that you would cause in the church right doctrine to be upheld and preached, the whole counsel that you have revealed, not running away from hard things, not adding on things.

Father, we pray that you would cause right worship in the church and good government and discipline. Father, we ask that you would cause the use of censures to be effective for the recovery of those in unrepentant sin.

Father, we pray that you would teach us your law, that we would love it. Father, we ask that you would cause us as we stare into your law to see our own need of salvation, and we would also see the greatness of the salvation that you've given in your gospel.

We ask that you would restrain the outbreak of sin amongst us, and that you would cause us to use your law as a lamp unto our feet. Father, we pray that you would give to us all the things that we need to do our duties, that you would provide for us, that you would cause us to eat of the fat of the land, to ride the high places of the earth, that you would cause us to live long and to enjoy what you have given, and that you would cause the removal of curse, that you would give to us all of the things that are needful for our well-being, and the things that we can use to honor and glorify you, and to bless each other.

Father, we ask that you would help us to honor you with the first fruits of what you give to us, and that you would cause our barns to overflow. We pray, Father, that you would help us to see the greatness of our debt of sin, and the greatness of the payment offered by Christ.

We ask that you would forgive us our debts, and that you would help us to forgive each other swiftly upon repentance. Help us to interpret each other charitably, to look to see, are we sure that the other has done something that is wrong before we judge?

And help us, when there are minor faults, to cover in love, to not show off the failings of others, but to walk backwards to cover their nakedness. Father, we ask that you would help us when things cannot be overlooked.

We ask that you would help us to resolve matters, to seek to discuss and bring things up, and to see peace restored, to be peacemakers. Father, we ask that you would help us to put things in good order in our lives, in our space, in our relationships, how we schedule, the things that we buy, the things that we don't buy, the things that we put into place physically, the way we order our homes, the jobs we keep.

We ask that you would cause us to put things in good order, to remove sources of temptation that are obvious, for us to even search for things that are less plain, that we could seek to put in order to reduce temptations.

But Father, we ask that you would help us as we run into temptations, as we fail and neglect, but also even as we prepare properly, but still run into difficulties, that you would cause the power of sin in us to be subdued, that not only the guilt of sin would be dealt with by Christ's blood, but that the power of sin would be dealt with in us by the work of your word and spirit.

And so we pray that the ordinances today would be used to further subdue within us the power of evil, and that you would quicken in us the new man, and cause us to bear good fruit. We pray these things by the name of Jesus Christ, asking based upon your authority and power, relying upon his mediation, knowing that you will glorify yourself.

We are confident that you will answer. Amen. Please open your Bibles to Exodus 20. Deacon Rodriguez, please come forward. Please stand for the reading of God's word.

Exodus 20. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it, you shall do no work, you nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days, the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.

Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God has given you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

Now all the people witnessed the thundering, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. And when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, you speak with us and we will hear, but let not God speak with us lest we die.

And Moses said to the people, do not fear for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you may not sin. So the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was.

Then the Lord said to Moses, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, you have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with me, gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.

An altar of earth you shall make for me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record my name, I will come to you and I will bless you.

And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone, for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. Nor shall you go up by steps to my altar that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.

Please remain standing.

Open your Psalter and turn to Psalm 16. I'll be reading through both parts this morning. Psalm 16, a victim of David. Lord, keep me, for I trust in you. My soul said to the Lord, you are my Lord. My goodness is nothing apart from you.

To the excellent saints on earth, in them I take delight, but sorrows grow for all of those who chase after false gods. To such false gods, I will not give drink of offerings of blood, nor will I ever with my lips take up their names to pray.

The Lord is my inheritance and portion of my cup. You keep my lot, cause good boundaries and a good heritage. Oh, I will always bless the Lord who does give me counsel. My heart also does instruct me throughout the night seasons.

I have set the Lord ever there before me in my sight. Because he is at my right hand, I shall remain unmoved. Therefore, my heart is truly glad. My glory does rejoice. Indeed, my flesh does even now, in hope, securely rest.

Because you will not leave my soul to linger in Hades. And corruption, you'll not allow to touch your Holy One. The path of life, you'll show to me. With you is joy fulfilled. At your right hand are pleasures held to last forevermore.

You may be seated.

Psalm 16 is often referred to as the golden psalm. It covers key aspects of life for the believer. It covers our total depravity, joy in the presence of the brethren, contentment, fleeing sin, storing the word in our heart, true joy in Christ, all of those.

So this was a particularly delightful psalm to meditate on. So the outline of it is as follows, and broken up as our Psalter breaks it up. The first metrical verse is a prayer and it recognizes our depravity.

The second is taking joy in the presence of the brethren and a specific warning against sin. The third is about fleeing pagan practices. And then metrical verses four to seven are an encouragement to take joy in the Lord.

And eight and nine are how that joy is seen. So let's look at this first metrical verse and it's part of the prayer and the recognition of our depravity. Lord keep me for I trust in you. My soul said to the Lord, you are my Lord.

My goodness is nothing apart from you. So it's a prayer and a plea. David here is recognizing what he has and he wants to remain in the condition of contentedness in the Lord. He trusts the Lord and he realizes his goodness is nothing, literally nothing apart from God.

And there are no good unbelievers either. So we should realize the razor's edge we're on. At any moment apart from God, we fall. We are totally depraved. But David moves on. Second metrical verse. To the excellent saints on earth, in them I take delight.

But sorrows grow for all of those who chase after false gods. So this is David's view on his fellow believers. He takes delight in them. So think of the people in this room, your brothers and sisters in arms.

God has organized his people into battalions known as churches. And these are the men and women you're sworn together with to fight for his cause. So these, all believers, but in particular these believers, take delight in them.

Each one is here for a reason. The next part of the verse is interesting and it's, explicitly it says, the sorrows grow for those who chase after false gods. But the warning here is to believers. So we all know and can easily spot a pagan who chases, runs towards, multiplies sin.

They have no concern for God, only interested in doing evil. That's easy. But more insidious are the ways in which the believer has a relationship with sin. We may not run towards it, it may not be as obvious, but what we do is we're tempted anyways to inch or creep towards sin.

So looking at something for a moment too long that leads over time to worse sins. The thoughts we entertain in the recesses of our mind are growing bit by bit and can't let them take hold. So we are forgiven, we're being sanctified, and yet we must remain watchful.

So that's David's implied warning to the believers here is that chasing after false gods, pagans do that, bad, obvious. But we do it also and we may not be running, but beware of the inching and creeping.

So the third metrical verse, Fleeing Pagan Practices, to such false gods I will not give drink offerings of blood nor will I ever with my lips take up their names to pray. So pagans would often consume literal blood as part of their practices.

David refuses to do so, nor to ask for favor from any of their demons ultimately, their gods. So think of the people on the planet today, they might not drink literal blood, some do, but they definitely take up the names of false gods, demons, Hindus, Muslims.

David commits here to not go anywhere near those practices. His son Solomon would experience some of the harms of drawing near to those godless practices over time. But there's a previous warning, still connected to that previous verse, beware of those who run toward the strange fire, strange practices, their mind is ensnared.

And without extreme caution, you too run the risk of being ensnared as well. Keep your distance unless there's a need to engage. So the fourth metrical verse through the seventh is an encouragement to take your joy in the Lord.

And so this is how David begins that. The Lord is my inheritance and portion of my cup. You keep my lot, cause good boundaries and a good heritage. David indicates that for the believer, the Lord is sufficient.

It's not the Lord and X, Y, or Z, it's the Lord. There is simply no room for discontentment with the lot the Lord has given us. He continues, oh, I will always bless the Lord who does give me counsel.

My heart also does instruct me through night seasons. So it's the Lord who shows us the way to live. He's given the only rule for faith in life in his scriptures. And as we begin to store that word in our hearts, you will have those words to draw upon in the night seasons and know that they will come.

There will be difficulty. And in part, the level of success in persevering through trials will be related to the amount of preparation done beforehand. That's true in basically everything. The movies would like you to believe you become a hero overnight.

But it's truly, it's by diligent preparation, little by little, you gradually grow in wisdom. Change takes time. It takes time. So how do we seek that change? David tells us, Metrical verse six. I have set the Lord ever there before me in my sight.

Because he is at my right hand, I shall remain unmoved. So here, our father in the face is showing us the way. Simply, simply set the Lord before you in your sight. Remember, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

If you approach every decision, every situation with how do I glorify God here, you will progress. You will search the scriptures for the perfect wisdom. You will make mistakes, but God has saved you.

He cannot and will not lose you. So like David, you will remain unmoved in your salvation. Further description from David, Metrical verse seven. Therefore, my heart is truly glad. My heart, my glory does rejoice.

Indeed, my flesh does even now in hope securely rest. So that true gladness is found in the Lord. We know we look forward to the resurrection. We will die. Many men have gone before us to death. Christ has gone before us.

He's also gone before us in resurrection. And you can rest securely in the faith knowing your resurrection will be with the Lord, not apart from. So now there's the shift to joy. You kind of, you see the beginning of the shift to that final joy in the Lord in Metrical verse seven, but really in eight.

Because you will not leave my soul to linger in Hades and corruption you'll not allow to touch your Holy One. It's clearly speaking here about Christ. Again, I think I mentioned this previously, what some Psalm dislikers might tell you, Christ is present throughout the Psalms.

And he says Christ will not be corrupted. Remember, again, David is looking forward to Christ who has now come. And he knew from that position in time that no corruption would be able to touch Christ.

So he concludes here with the path of life you'll show to me. With you is joy fulfilled. At your right hand are pleasures held to last forevermore. So David believes life is to be found in the Lord. He believes true joy is found in the Lord.

He believes that everlasting, not just temporary, pleasure is to be found in seeking the Lord. So as you go through life, there's few aspects of life that Psalm 16 here doesn't touch. And I think particularly seeing how David takes joy in the salvation and seeing the danger of sin to the believer is particularly important.

So he starts off with that, started off with that prayer and recognition of his depravity and the general depravity out there. He takes joy in his fellow soldiers being with them. He encourages us to flee pagan practices and don't be deceived that in 2024 that paganism is somehow gone from the land because you don't see piles of skulls in the street.

It's alive and well. Our job is to kill it. And then David finished out with a beautiful exposition of taking and seeing joy in the Lord. So any comments, questions, objections from voting members or those with speaking privileges?

Pastor Reese, beautiful, thank you.

All right.

All right, please stand to sing Psalm 16. Let's sing now Psalm 16 together with understanding and grace in the heart, having just been instructed as to its meaning. Psalm 16, a mixture of David.

Lord keep me for I trust in you My soul does too, the Lord, my Lord, my goodness is true This is nothing apart from you To the excellent saints on earth and them I take delight But sorrows grow, food chase after false gods To such false gods I will not give Drink offerings of blood, take up their names to keep

Part two.

Give me counsel, my heart also does instruct me Throughout the night season, I have set the Lord at hand Before me in my sight, because he is at my right hand While remerfored is truly glad, my glory does rejoin my flesh Does even now in hope securely rest, because you with me Will not leave my soul to linger in hating and corruption You'll not allow to touch your holy one path of life With you is joy fulfilled at your right hand Our pleasures held to last forever

All right, please now open the scriptures.

To 2 Timothy 4, 2 Timothy chapter four, verse one.

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering in teaching, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

But you, be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

Be diligent to come to me quickly, for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica. Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia, only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you.

For he is useful to me for ministry. And Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, when you come. All the books, especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm.

May the Lord repay him according to his works. You also must beware of him, for he has greatly resisted our words. At my first defense, no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them.

But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also, I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for his heavenly kingdom.

To him be glory forever and ever, amen. Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Anesophorus. Erastus stayed in Corinth, but Trophimus I have left in Miletus sick. Do your utmost to come before winter.

Eubolus greets you as well as Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you, amen. You may be seated.

Okay.

So get your hand out. We're pretty far along in the book. You'll remember that the center of the book has to do with apostasy, the great apostasy that would occur in the last days of the Old Covenant, and the difficulties that would arise there.

And so the defense of the church against this apostasy involves being able to judge faithful ministers and how they behave in the face of that apostasy. And so when we look at the sections out from the center, we see that that's what there's a focus on.

There's this focus in E, when you look at the chiasm, when you look at section E, you start to see this idea of the characteristics of faithful ministry. There's an emphasis on the word of God being the subject matter to be taught.

We see as we go out to the section called D, the way in which people had forsaken Paul. And so forsakenness is not a thing that demonstrates that a ministry is wrong. In other words, popularity is not a marker that helps you to determine whether a ministry is faithful.

The praise of men, the praise of religious institutions, is not the basis for determining that faithful ministry. What we find is that the visible churches of the time, the Old Covenant visible churches, the synagogues, in mass departed from the faith and condemned the apostolic ministry.

And you find even within the churches that accepted the New Covenant and the administration of the New Covenant. In those New Covenant churches, there was a grand apostasy. We are living in a time that is like that, where there is a very large scale departure from the faith that has occurred where many people who were raised in Christian homes had abandoned what they were raised in.

We are also in an interesting time where many people are waking up, having grown up in this disgusting pagan culture. They are starting to realize this is awful. It is not satisfying. And so we live in a weird time of opportunity and yet also a time where the churches are seeing mass apostasy and where the churches themselves are largely heterodox or heretical.

And so we see a time that in some ways overlaps with what Paul was dealing with and his faithful ministry being forsaken. We see the example of Paul and how he suffers and continues. We see the example of faithful saints that even though some forsook him, some did not.

And he commends the faithful saints. And then we have the blessings that are given at the beginning and end of the letter. So those are the major sections of the book. So we're continuing now and we're looking at section E, but we're gonna be jumping into the last part of it in chapter four, so page two of your outline.

I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.

And this is instruction for teachers. This is instruction for you to be able to judge teachers, but it's also instruction for you in how you should live as a Christian. And so I will be preaching knowing that this applies to myself, but I want you to carry this as an example of what should be done by every Christian in terms of the use of the word.

Because what's being told to Timothy here is told to him in terms of what he is to do from his public ministry, but also how he is to behave in his private life. And the private example is something that applies to every Christian, and not just to preachers.

So we are reminded this charge is a call to fulfill an obligation. It's an appealing to the covenant obligation that Timothy has as a preacher, as an officer, and of a general call from the law order of God.

The command to preach is the command to proclaim. It is a command to herald. When we think about heralds, it is important to remember that a herald has a duty to carry the message of the one who has appointed him as a herald.

It is the duty of a herald to carry the words of the king that has appointed him. So the Lord Jesus Christ, as king of the church, gives words that are a deposit for the church and for his heralds to preach.

A herald must speak publicly and loudly, distinctly and clearly for the hearing of information to be delivered. This distinct and clear preaching for the hearing of information also requires clarity not just in terms of diction, but clarity in terms of what is said.

Beloved, do you remember throughout the scriptures when wolves, when heretics are talked about, is it said of them, they're really clear about their heresies, and they're not very crafty, they're not deceptive, they don't plot to deceive.

No, the scriptures teach the exact opposite. They are crafty, they are deceptive, and they plot to deceive. I want you to be aware of heresy and false doctrine and to hear it when it's plainly taught and to know plainly taught heresy when you see it.

But beloved, I want you to also be aware when you find people being unclear and they won't stop being unclear, that is a marker, that is a sign of heresy. It is the tool of liberals and heretics of every stripe to take the plain teaching of scripture and the plain teaching of the confessions and creeds of the church and to seek to twist the words.

One of the most famous examples of this was when liberals took from the shorter catechism the statement that the scriptures contain the word of God. And as opposed to what was plainly meant there and obviously explained in chapter one of the confession and obviously explained in the longer form in the Westminster Larger Catechism, they took this statement from the shorter catechism and said the scriptures contain the word of God.

And they said, absolutely, we believe that. It's just that not everything in the scriptures is the word of God. The word of God is there somewhere. Some portions of it are the word of God or some portions of it overlap with the word of God, but the scriptures aren't in their entirety infallible, inerrant, and every single jot and tittle breathed out by God.

But somewhere in there, yes, the scriptures contain in some of it the word of God. And do you know how those liberal preachers would figure out which parts were the word of God? The parts they liked. That's what these preachers did.

And so this idea, this danger there, the liberals took over the churches in the United States because the sweetness and light Christians in the churches didn't want to hold men who equivocated accountable.

I've been involved in a number of interesting arguments with Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics recently. And one of the things they like to do when they talk to you about James chapter two is it says, you know, in James chapter two, we have Abraham was not justified by faith only.

And you go, well, what justification are we talking about? We're talking about justification before men. And we're talking about faith in that context that James chapter two is talking about a profession of faith, which is obvious in the context.

So what Roman Catholics like to do is they like to say, you're equivocating. You won't let justification mean the same thing in every place in scripture. And when it says faith here, you won't let it mean the same thing everywhere.

Beloved, that's not equivocation. Equivocation is when somebody takes a set of words and without explaining to you the different ways that they're using it, slide between different meanings. That's what heretics do.

They take pious sounding words and they slide between talking about the Orthodox sense and the heretical sense and they use association to convey to you the heretical idea they want you to walk away with.

And they do it in a crafty way so that when Orthodox teachers call them out, they say, no, I didn't say that. I meant this. I see how you might've taken it that way, but that's not what I went. I hope that's clear now.

But the problem is, especially when it's published, not everyone who read the original or heard the original hears the correction. And so the poison spreads in the body and the medicine doesn't always get there.

And so we have to mark false teachers and we have to mark heretics and we have to mark those that are doing things that are wicked and will not repent. And the marking is to say, this is a man who spreads poison.

That's the purpose. And so the goal, the goal in proclaiming clearly is to proclaim the truth and not to equivocate, but when you teach the truth, you have to distinguish senses. You have to say, in this text, this word is being used in this way.

In other places it might be used in this way. Here it's used this way. That's not equivocation. That's plain explanation of the meaning of a text and requires people to be able to compare Scripture with Scripture.

When you lay out the idea that this word has multiple meanings, people can evaluate it. When you just sneak in meanings, when you just explain things in a new way and by associative thought, seek to deceive people and make it hard to be called out as a heretic, that's deceitful, crafty plotting.

Now, all men, except for the Lord Jesus Christ,.

Are gonna teach imperfectly. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists who wrote Scripture, their teaching captured in the Scripture is not fallible because it's immediately inspired by God. And so we don't have to worry, oh, was this corrupted because it came through a man?

No, these are the words of Christ. I remember every, we talk about the difference between red letters and black letters, right? Some people say, oh, the red letters are the ones that Jesus said, the black letters are the rest of them.

They're all red letters.

They're all Jesus's words. So these words are infallible, but we need to recognize that even though human teachers might err and even though human teachers might intentionally be equivocating or unintentionally equivocating, the calling out to clarify is important and the duty of a teacher is to be clear not only in his diction, but also in his doctrine.

He must be clear how he explains. He must be clear to differentiate truth from error. He must clearly lay things beside each other and present the positions that he holds and those that he's refuting and to make those things plain.

And the purpose of a confession of a church is to help the congregation to be able to hold preachers accountable. But the preacher has the duty to preach the Word. Now this preaching, this proclaiming, this heralding of clear and distinct truths, he is to be ready to preach.

Not just when there's a pulpit offered to him. Not just in those times that are in season. Not just those times when it's obvious and everybody says, why don't you preach the Word now? But also out of season.

And so beloved, this part I really want you to be aware of. There's a duty to not just preach in terms of the public ministry of the Word, but there's a duty for all of us to preach and to proclaim the Word of God.

Some people want to say only preachers preach. Some people want to say that there's a difference, there's a qualitative difference between what I'm doing right now in the pulpit and what happens when you are telling somebody the gospel and telling them to repent and believe.

The only difference is the greater publicity and therefore the greater need for solemnity and the need, because there are more hearers, to have those that are ready to teach well and have been recognized for a gift of teaching.

And for the sake of order and for the sake of effectiveness and efficiency, you have those men who are qualified in terms of character and competency to do that work. But the activity of preaching is no different in terms of the proclaiming of truth and the work of the Holy Spirit that accompanies.

There's no difference between what I'm doing now and when you tell somebody the gospel and tell them to repent and believe. There is a desire to make mystical something that's different and it's a part of a clericalism to make a priestly caste that is distinct.

And so it is something that is important to understand. The reasons we respect order and respect office are not because of something mystical, but it's because God commands order in the church and he has given offices for the sake of order to protect the truth and to protect right worship.

So these are the things that we must recognize. You are all called to preach the word. You must do so in private and the public proclaiming of the word in terms of the assembly, the church of God, is a thing where you have an orderly mechanism for the selection and setting apart of men.

The preaching of the word, we must be ready for it in season, when it's convenient, at the opportune moment, when you're invited or asked to do so, and when it feels right. Those are the times, right?